Nobody said that a driver "...can't be merged upstream" ... but
REQUIRING a driver to be merged upstream to allow development and / or
testing is a problem, IMHO.
If you required that all of my development happens within a git
development repository, preventing me from working against distro-kernel
xyz, then I would simply spend more time on Windows driver development
and my Linux contributions would cease.
External subsystem development repositories allow us to work against
stable kernels at our own pace. When driver X is ready to be merged, it
gets merged.
With the model that you propose, "use linux-next for development" ...
well then what about testing? Who is going to test my driver if it
requires a full kernel compile?
Khali, you know me, and you know that I am always in favor of merging
drivers into the kernel. The ability to choose a kernel's features is
an option that should not be removed.
Regards,
Mike
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